| sebastian.luetgert on Fri, 28 Jan 2000 20:04:39 +0100 |
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| Syndicate: Yugoslavs of all countries - unite! |
Juergen Elsaesser, speech delivered on the congress of the "Lord
Byron Foundation" and the Serbian Writers´ Union, 24/25th
January, Belgrad
Uprising of the Tribes
Kosovo was only the beginning: The Third World War is prepared
like the Second by the tribes under german command.
My first thesis might perplex you: I think, and in this way I
follow the reflections of former Israelian foreign minister
Sharon, that in the war against Yugoslavia the main war criminal
was not the government of the United States, but that it were
?the europeans, who have torn the US into a horrible adventure?.
Indeed the US assumed the main burden of the air campaign und it
was responsible for the mass of the devastations in Yugoslavia,
but it were the Europeans, especially the Germans, who provoked
the war. To offer an image: The ?krauts? were the incendiaries,
the ?yankees? extinguished the fire with gasoline.
In three points the responsability of Germany for provoking the
war is evident:
Firstly. While the west as a whole supported the quite moderate
albanian leader Rugova after 1992, the albanians? so-called
president, Germany backed from the beginning Rugova`s rival
Bukoshi, the so-called prime minister of the Kosovo-Albanians,
who was a declared advocate and financier of the armed struggle
of the KLA and its precursors.
Secondly. In Dayton Clinton and Milosevic signed a treaty
neglecting the Kosovo question. That pragmatism was a condition
for the cease-fire in Bosnia.This was sharply criticised by the
German government, and subsequently the Germans tried again and
again to make Kosovo the focus of the western stand towards
Yugoslavia.
Thirdly. While the State Department denounced the KLA for a long
time and with good arguments as ?terrorits oganization?, the
guerillas were complacently supported by Germany. When for
example Richard Holbrooke after his visit in Kosovo in summer
1998 tried to stop the flood of money pouring out of western
countries into the pockets of KLA leaders, the German officials
did nothing against this fund raising of the KLA on German
territory. The bulk of KLA-money came from Switzerland and
Germany, until the very end. Even the international supply of
weapons for the KLA ran over Germany and was backed by the
German secret service, the BND, what lead to a ?serious rift?
between BND and CIA, as the british weekly The European wrote in
September 1998.
Not before the end of 1998 did the US take over the pole
position in the preparation of war. Because the
Clinton-administration thought that this war could not be
avoided any longer, it at least wanted to secure the victory
for the US - and not to to leave it to the KLA and its German
advocates. Of course this was a wrong calculation: The US-Air
Force won the war, but today, the KLA rules over Kosovo, and the
German mark is the only currency there. The US won the war - but
it lost the peace, to the KLA and Germany.
Historic parallels
The avantgarde part Germany played in the dismemberment of
Yugoslavia in the nineties finds a historic model: The German
avantgarde role in destabilizing and destroying sovereign states
like Yugoslavia, Chechoslovakai, Austria and others in the
forefield and at the beginning of WWII.
In preparing WW II Germany took tribal irredentism and
separatism directly in his service. It?s battle-cry was the
?right of selfdetermination of people?.Against the so-called
artificial states founded according to the the Versailles
treaties the Nazis mobilized not only their so-called countrymen
in foreign states - the Volksdeutschen in Sudety, Silesia and in
the Saar Region -, but encouraged also other so-called
?oppressed people? to secession and expansion: Hungarians,
Croatians, the Ukraine and Slovakia for example conquered their
?right of self-determination? at the side of Nazi-Germany,
became part of the fascits axis and collaborated in executing
the holocaust. SS-Fuehrer Heinrich Himmler spoke very frankly
about this strategy: ?Regarding the alien peoples we must try
to recognize and care for as many single nationalities as
possible. That means that we have not only the greatest interest
not to unify the population of the east, but in he contrary to
subdivide them in as many parts and splinters as possible.?
That WWII would not have been possible without the help of these
nationalities and minorities, these fifth columns, shows
exemplarily the smashing of chechoslovakia in 1938/39: The
aggression policy of Hitler would not have succeeded, if not
civil-war-like conditions would have ben unleashed in
Chechoslovakia itself. For that purpose Hitler used in the first
place the german mob in the frontier regions, the
Sudetendeutsche. Their activities lead to the crisis in automn
1938, finally to the treaty of Munich and the annexion of these
frontier regions. But also the not-german tribe of the Slovaks
sought its hail with the Fuehrer: The declaration of
independence of slovakia in March 1939 was the ?key? - so the
Czech hitsorian Miroslav Karny - for the smashing of
Rest-Czechoslovakia and for annexing it as ?Protectorate Boehmen
and Maehren? to the Grossdeutsche Reich.
In the twenties and thirties there was a cross-over of left and
fascist policy in destabilizing the Versailles system in many
countries. The self-determination of the Sudetendeutschen
?including the right of secession?, the main instrument for the
destruction of Chechoslovakia, was demanded by the Czech
communits party even before the sudetendeutsche Fascists
demanded it. The same cross-over took place in Yugoslavia where
the Comunists collaborated with the croatian Ustascha until 1935
in order to destroy the central state and to enable Croatians
and others to build up there own state. In Austria the Socialist
Party bate the drum for the unification with Germany for so many
years, that finally it could hardly convince its adherents, why
they shouldn?t support Hitler?s version of this unification. Its
leader Karl Renner remained on the pro-german cours even after
the invasion of the Nazi-Wehrmacht in 1938 and even called his
compatriots to vote ?Yes? in the annexion-referendum in April
1938.
Germany could annex Austria and Chechoslovakia because many
socialists, communists and even the appeasers in western
governments shared the biologistic understanding of nation and
people which was in the center of Nazi-ideology: Therefore a
people is an anthropological mythic entity, a kind of extended
version of a tribe, which is based on vague cultural community,
in the las resort based on blood. In this non-sense the majority
of the citizens of Austria and even a big minority of the czech
citizens werde defined as - and defined themselves as - Germans.
It?s the same like today in Kosovo: The main of the yugoslavian
citizens there are defined - and define themselves - as
Albanians.
The alliance of Yalta
That the civilized world at last refused this biological tribal
halluzination, was the fundamental philosophic condition for the
forming of the Anti-Hitler-coalition. The Soviet-Union as well
as the western democracies - after they both had hesitated much
too long - began to fight nazism when they remembered that
modern understanding of nation from which the french republic as
well as he United Kingdom and the soviet as well as the american
Union once had originated: Nation is not based on biology, but
based on constitution. It is the totality of those, who wish to
live in a common state after common ideals - irrespective of
their origin, their language, their religion or culture: nation
as a political construction based on the volonté général, a
daily referendum (Renan). That was a strict denial of the
pre-modern german halluzination, that there were nations or
people (or even races) outside real-exitsing states. There are
no nations or peoples before, above or under the populations of
real-exitsing states. If the documents of the Big Four use the
term ?self-determination of people?, they understood it in the
sense of ?self-government? of the citizenship of real existing
states. And even the Soviet-Union in those times used their
propaganda-terms of ?people?s front? or ?people?s democracy? not
in the german sense, but in a french sense, in the sense of
ther french revolution and the Ius soli: as the right of the
population of a real-existing state to decide over the fate of
this state in its already existing borders.
The experiences wih the unleashing of WWII lead to important
political decisions of the Big Four, who ratified in the Potsdam
Conference the Versailles system against the aspirations of the
German-led tribes. All self-proclaimed nationalities and ethnic
splinters who had served as fifth columns of the Germans und
thus enabled them their aggression policy, were deprived of
their territorial background. The Potsdam Conference sanctioned
the transfer of some asiatic and tartarian minorities in the
Soviet-Union by silence, and it supported explicitly that the
so-called Volksdeutschen were driven out of Chechoslovakia and
Poland. This was a peace-building measure.
Also the Charta of the United Nations decided in late 1945
symbolizes this paradigm-change: The smashing of sovereign
states by referring of the self-determination of allegedly
oppressed minority-peoples was put to a stop. The UN-Charta
tolerates the use of violence only in the case of self-defence
of souvereign states and after a decision of the Security
Council, but not to enforce the self-determination of people.
According to the UN-Charta subjects of the international
relations are states, not peoples.
My conclusion: The victory of the Anti-Hitler-alliance was only
possible, because a worldwide unity was formed of constitutional
nationalists against blood-based nationalists, of nations
against tribes. At the top of the allies stood men, who fought
primarily for the power and strength of their nations-states and
who committed in pursuing this aim more or less severe crimes:
Stalin, the worst, had purged the party from all
internationalits already in the thirties, Churchill and DeGaulle
pursued a severe course in colonial issues for a long time. Why
these machiavellistic politicians didn?t try to build up an
alliance with Germany for the profit of all participants? What
made them enemies of the Nazis? It was at first the
multi-ethnic origin and the constitutional character of their
own states. If they would have tolerated the German
ethnic-biological theories, these states would have been blown
up by the uprising of the tribes. Therefore the states of the
Yalta-Alliance represented in spite of all differences and of
all crimes they committed the principles of the one and
undividible human race: Everybody can get the citizenship, and
all citizens are equal under the law.
Fascism in Pristina
Today, those principles are cancelled in Kosovo: The so-called
Kosovars are alltogether yugoslavian citizens but only those
under them can survive who don?t feel and confess as such, but
as ?Albanians?. How much the unleashed identity-delusion of a
tribe differs from constitunional nations even in their racist
attitudes shows perhaps best the example of the gypsies, because
they are the weakest in any society: Under serbian rule the
gypsies were - like in many other contries - discriminated and
sometimes mistreated, but they were always tolerated. Fear for
their life was not necessary until the 11th of June 1999 when
the ?Albanians? could enforce their right of self-determination
with the help of Nato. Nearly all of the gypsies - about 150.000
- have fled, hundreds were murdered. Varyfying Daniel Goldhagen
one could say: The hatred against gypsies of the Yugoslavs was
discriminatory, the one of the ?Albanians? is eliminatory.
The difference in the aggressivity of the nationalism of
constitunional nations on the one and of blood-based nations,
peoples and tribes on the other side may have it roots in the
following: A constitutional nation is an artificial
construction, but it is at least a construction; it has its
reality in the state and its enemy can only be those who are
enemies of this state. But the blood-based nation or tribe is
less than a construction, it is a mere fancy without material
reality, and danger is threatening from anybody at any time.
Tribes and peoples based on blood - for lack of objective
criteria to define their ascribed identity as nation - define
themselves much more merciless than constitutional nations. The
Yugoslavs guaranteed all inhabitants of Kosovo the full scale of
civic rights - including the ?Albanians? except of only those
who fought against the centralstate. They followed more or less
the principle: Who is not against us is for us. The ?Albanians?
cannot make sure of their identity but by inversing this
principle: Who is not for us, is against us.
Today in Kosovo, all individual human rights are cancelled by th
KLA while only the ?right of self-determination? of the
Albanians is guaranteed. With other words: The values of the
Atlantic Revolution were substituted by the values of the
ethnic, tribal revolution which the Nazis advocated more
consequently than any other. Why then the western countries have
supported this? Why then they have supported the transformation
of Kosovo in a fascist tribe territory?
I suppose because the modern nations who managed to defeat the
tribes yet in WWII have come into a deep crisis themselves in
the last decades. In Belgium, Italy, Spain, even in the UK and
France the centrifugal forces are getting stronger, allegedly
oppressed people like the Scots and the Corsicans emerge with
mythic ambitions. If the cohension of a society is in danger
because the state is no more able to guarantee the welfare of
all its citizens and all its regions, wealthier regions intend
to separate themselves from poorer ones in a foolish attempt to
belong to the winners of globalization. At the same time it is
more attractive for the global trusts to maintain their
worldwide suppliers not in unsecure and perhaps refrectory
greater states but in special economic zones, spheres of
co-prosperity, complaisant micro-republics and Ruritania-like
entities. That means: The unchained capitalism devours its own
children, the nation-states, which it generated during its rise
in the 19th century. Those which want to survive have to subdue
to the hegemons of he world market, the United States and the
German-led European Union. That Germany has some advantages in
this rivalry shows the warm greeting ?Heil Hitler? with which
German soldiers and journalists are welcomed by the natives in
Kosovo today. The Albanians remember the brotherhood in arms
under the flag of SS-Europe and pin their hopes on that for the
future. After all the Germans are again their idols since 1989:
With their battle-cry ?We are one people? they have enforced
german unification and then brought half a continent under heir
command - why shouldn´t Albanians, tribes of Caucasus and Hutus
try the same?
But still there is hope, because still there are remainders of
the Anti-Hitler-coalition within the constitutional nations: The
grandchildren of Stalin, Churchill and DeGaulle, that means the
russian Communists, the french Gaullists and the british Tories,
together with parts of the US-republicans, opposed quite
vigorously the Nato-Aggression against Yugoslavia. Henry
Kissinger´s arguments during the Rambouillet summit were based
on the reason of the modern constitutional state, Jus soli:
?Yugoslavia, a souvereign state, is forced to deliver the
control and souvereignity over a province with a lot of national
sanctuaries to foreign military. Analogously one could urge the
US to let foreign troops march into Alamo, in order to give the
city back to Mexico, because the ethnic balance has changed.?
(re-translated from german)
Kissingers? position did not succeed until now - like in the
thirties, as Chamberlain?s appeasement and Molotov?s pact drove
the antifascists of all countries into desperation. But at a
certain point Churchill and DeGaulle put an end to this
undignified spectacle - and for precisely such a turning point,
for precisely such a paradigm-change we wait today. I would be
glad if we could debate the question during this conference as
to how we could promote such a paradigm-change for the defense
of western values against barbarism. In any case: With the
bombing of Belgrade and other yugoslavian cities and villages
the west did not only destroy a peaceful country and kill
countless of innocents, but also ruined the bases of its own
civilization This process must not be continued if mankind is to
survive. Therefore I would like to alter Karl Marx? famous old
slogan: Not ?Proletarians of all countries -unite!? but
?Yugoslavs of all countries - unite!?
http://www.juergen-elsaesser.de/byron.htm
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